In the neighborhood I live in it is impossible to build a McMansion thanks to a VERY strict city design review. But in some of the cheaper surrounding neighborhoods they are going up like crazy. People are jamming them on tiny lots designed for their 1,400 sq ft home, so the yard becomes a pencil of green if there is even one left at all. Most of the designs are terrible, combining spanish style with massive greek columns are archways, and garish entryways that scream mine is bigger than yours. They are build horrible as they are done as the lowest bid, using poor quality materials, unskilled labor, and dirt cheap interior design. They are put up with no concern for surrounding home designs or what effect they have on neighboring properties. So in neighborhood that are mostly 1940's ranch homes you get these huge eyesores sticking up out of the landscape.

You have an area where you have the land to support a development of these kinds of homes, fine. But please stop jamming these on tiny lots where they stick out like a huge pimple.

If people didn't want them for whatever reason (small lot, similarity, affordibility). Nobody would build them. By the time someone comes up w/ a way to build affordable unique stylish modern and it is easy to do so they will become the new eyesore. You cannot argue w/ the marketplace. Most people don't have the time or don't want to take the time to create something custom and unique. If you have a new, better solution go for it! You will be rewarded generously! To each his/her own. Why would anyone deny everyone else the same? Anyone who claims they have 'better' taste than anyone else is a pompous a$$. Splatgirl has created an awesome home but if there were hundreds or thousands of em lined up side by side we'd probably say the similar things. It's always the same cycle of broad market mass solutions vs. niche custom market. My point is the many who choose today's McMansion deserve respect for their decision like anyone choosing to build a unique home themselves. If there were only custom homes available our housing market and economy would be in the crapper. Do these same people that rip McMansions also complain about everyone in Coconut grove driving a mercedes? Those NAMBIE auto mobile brainless conformists should each have a custom car too! lol.

I guess the MAIN thing I respect those residents for is their gumption to collect money, buy the lot, and self-enable a product they deem more value-added than the typical McMansions.

I'll give them BIG credit for that. Today, we seem to live our own lives and never ACT as a COMMUNITY... and that's how so many bad thing happen - we ALLOW it to happen by our reluctance to get involved or speak up.

So that I don't sound like a whiner only, I HAVE made a plan for my life. It will be my career (since the auto industry that currently supports my dreaming is failing) and it WILL involve bringing people like us MODERN, AFFORDABLE, UTILITARIAN houses. My future company (I will be a spec builder) will be MAU Houses and my target demographic are dual income, young professionals with desires to want something out of the ordinary. And if I can get them INVOLVED to further save them money and reduce my total involement... all the better. Providing a product fast and efficient is my business plan... heck, MAU even means 'fast' in my native tongue.

I truly think those here who HAVE and ARE providing services/products like this (spatgirl, greg, designstudio, Res4, Flatpak, Kauffman, and the many other dreamers) WILL make a difference. We CANNOT rely on Pukete or ToolBrothers to offer us these dreams. We NEED to step up and do it ourselves!

Okay... now I'm gettin all weepy-eyed. gets off soap box